body leads, mind follows
Mallorca is a wild feminine vortex that pulls at you and asserts you for herself. Idling alongside is a discontent that I am missing a thousand other lives, connections and experiences elsewhere...
Settled on the floor I pull my laptop off the counter and place it on my lap to write before I change my mind again. I realise something… lap top.. laptop. Were they always designed to nestle tightly into someone’s lap between moments?
This Sunday morning, I am awake too early on account of the thunderstorm that reached into my dreams and pulled me out of my slumber. I’m drinking a coffee mixed with greek yoghurt, a dyadic attempt to both clean out my fridge of all that is remaining before my trip to Portugal in 3 days and eat a nourishing breakfast. My nutritionist says to always eat breakfast and always combine protein, fat and carbs. Greek yoghurt, coffee and honey cover all three, I think to myself.
After a summer that felt like a hectic carnival cruise, a cool western breeze has drifted into the atmosphere changing the weather and reminding me that I have almost lived a whole year on this little kismet island of contrast. A year since I landed. A broken, fragmented version of myself. I had to fall apart to put myself back together again, this time leaving behind the pieces that were no longer mine.
Perhaps this year has been my refinement. A distillation process where I was urged to alchemise the parts of me that were still playing out a deeply subconscious story of being a victim of life’s circumstances. Transmuting them into a deeper wisdom that all of it, all the aches and pains and challenges, they don’t matter. All of it is a gift.
I love this island and the people on it that I claim as friends and the cute cobblestone alleys and knobbled olive trees that tell stories from thousands of years ago. I have never felt so held and healed and grounded in one place. It is hard to leave and always a joy to come back. Mallorca is a wild feminine vortex that pulls at you and asserts you for herself.
Idling alongside my contentment here there is always also a subtle dissatisfaction. A sense that I am missing out on a thousand other lives, connections and experiences I could be having someplace else. Perhaps this is a feeling of longing for what else is out there that will always be a thorn in my side.
As the sun rises higher in the sky leaving the cotton candy streaks for the golden glow that fills the Mediterranean sky most days I remember that I will always be guided to exactly where I need to go. Body leads, mind follows.
Every day, in every moment, over and over again. This — one singular and simple concept — is what my entire spiritual practice leans on. Body leads, mind follows.
It requires two principles.
Am I surrendered to and present in my body so I can let it lead?
Am I willing to yield the mental chaos and racket in favour of trusting that which cannot be intellectually known?
If not, what needs to happen right now, at this moment, to return to that space? Frequently it’s as simple as meeting a few human needs. Rest. Breathe. Slow.
That’s the entirety of it. It’s the only way I know how to live in a world that is changing faster than I can wrap my mind around and navigate blindly in a way where my heart directs my steps to the beat of my internal compass. Body leads, mind follows.
The past years have been a psychedelic internal soul excavation. A process of self-recognition and -forgiveness as I discover that from all of my mistakes come all of my greatest gifts. Slowly, I find myself surfacing again, rediscovering the world and its endless beauty, potential and possibilities, a renewed version of myself.
It feels so good, to remember the limitlessness of my human life.
That every day, I get to choose again. To select something new, something else, to expand my perspective and openness, to receive the graciousness of life. It’s been a long time since I have tapped into that feeling. Many years of hiding inside my hermit shell as I lick the wounds I have inherited from thousands of ancestors teaching me that in my brokenness I reclaim my wholeness.
My little Mexican cat, Danger has curled onto the cross of my ankles while I type these words, the weight of his soft little warm body putting my legs to sleep as that pins-and-needles sensation starts to spread from my toes to my calves.
I need to end these thoughts here for today. Part gratuitous thanksgiving for life and the journey of it all, part soulful outpouring where words form the feelings I didn’t know I had until they make their way on this page here.